Patrick's Story: Patrick was born to a rural family in Mozambique on the 6th of April 1950. His father was a migrant labourer, working as a miner in South Africa. It was a tough existence. Migrant miners were badly paid and lived in bleak, inhospitable single sex hostels on the mines. The miners were allowed home only once or twice a year, for Easter and Christmas. Patrick’s father formed a relationship with a woman in a nearby township and had to share his meagre wage between his two women and their children. From an early age Patrick knew he would have to fend for himself. Patrick was a teenager when he followed his father to the mines. He got odd-jobs on the mines and eventually ended up working as a house painter and street photographer. He was a talented soccer player and played for local leagues. By his early twenties he was doing well – he had a car and his own camera, unusual material success for a young black man at the time. His first brush with the law came when he was in his mid-twenties. He was travelling in Zeerust, north west of Johannesburg, taking his girlfriend to visit her parents. They were stopped and searched by the police. They found Patrick’s camera and were suspicious – there had been acts of ANC sabotage in the area and they suspected Patrick of spying for the organization. He was arrested and deported to Mozambique. His car and camera were never returned to him. Patrick returned to South Africa shortly afterwards. He went to Secunda, a town several hours east of Johannesburg. He got a job at Sasol, the largest coal-to-oil plant in the world. He advanced quickly and ended up as a driver, a well paid position. His main job was to fetch coal from a neighbouring mine and bring it into Sasol. His soccer playing prowess made him popular on the plant and in the community. He married and had two children. On June 1st 1980 Mkhonto we Sizwe (MK) , the ANC’s military wing, bombed the Secunda plant, along with two other Sasol installations. Patrick was arrested in the aftermath of the bombs. He was one of the last drivers to leave the area where the bomb was placed, and police were looking ANC operatives inside Sasol who helped the MK operatives gain access to the plant. Police at the time had the power to hold people suspected of political crimes indefinitely, without access to a lawyer or family. Torture was routine. Patrick was detained for two weeks and had a bad time. He came out a changed man. By now he had two run-ins with the police, despite the fact that he had avoided any kind of political involvement all his life. He had been though hell for doing nothing. He decided that, if he was going to suffer the trauma of detention, he may as well suffer it for a reason and do something. Patrick crossed illegally into Mozambique and travelled to Maputo, the capital, and regional headquarters of the ANC. He was accepted into the organization and met MK Commander Joe Slovo, one of the few senior white members of the ANC. Joe was running Special Ops, a military unit set up to run spectacular acts of armed propaganda inside South Africa. He had been responsible for the first Sasol attacks, and he wanted to damage them further. Patrick made Joe an offer he couldn’t refuse – he could bring the Secunda plant to a standstill and make it burn for days, because of his knowledge of the plant. Patrick went to Angola to train in explosives, and came back to Maputo to prepare for his operation. He chose to work alone, which was unusual for MK operatives. On the day of the operation he hid himself on a conveyor belt that carried coal from a neighbouring mine to inside Sasol. His plan was to place one mine on a water treatment plant on the Sasol premises, followed by another on a reactor inside one of the main plants. The first explosion would act as a warning to the thousands of workers inside the reactor – ANC policy was that no lives were to be lost in any operations. It would also make it hard for the authorities to fight the fire. He planned for the reactor landmine to explode fifteen minutes after the water treatment plant. Patrick left Sasol as the first mine went off. The main plant emptied as planned. Police on the scene guessed that there was another landmine and found it before it could explode. If it had, the fire would have been virtually unstoppable. Patrick had three more land mines and he was determined to use them. Over the next three days he bombed two electrical sub-stations, plunging an entire town into total darkness. After evading the police for three days Patrick was arrested. He was convicted of terrorism and sentenced to jail for 24 years. Patrick served 10 years and was amnestied in 1992, along with all political prisoners. He now lives in North East South Africa with Conney, a woman he married since his release. They have three children of their own and have fostered many others, orphaned by AIDS.